


Make It Sound Like Everything

by estike



Series: goodbye is forever (so do not rush out the door) [2]
Category: COMPANY - Ibuki Yuki, Company - Lesson Passion Company Takarazuka Revue
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:21:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24635986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estike/pseuds/estike
Summary: Takano Haruka is rushed to the emergency room.
Relationships: Takano Haruka/Aoyagi Seiichi
Series: goodbye is forever (so do not rush out the door) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775695
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Make It Sound Like Everything

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the novel version, but can be read as a fic for the Tkzk musical if you squint hard enough.

**Takano**

Aoyagi seizes him by the arm the moment they push the sound-insulating door open between the wings and backstage. Panic washes over him for a moment by the sudden contact: Aoyagi is not the type to ever initiate a touch anyway. Then he realizes.

He’s trying to take the weight off of his injured foot. 

Having realized that, Takano places a hand on his arm and calls his name.

“I’m fine,” he tells him. 

“A car is waiting for you outside already.”

In the background, Segawa is saying something about going as soon as possible — if he can go in his costume, even better. They are all scared, Takano notices. But are they worried about his well-being, or are they worried about his dancing ability?

Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s the same thing. When he himself can only understand his own value through the lenses of dancing, he cannot really expect others to do differently, he tells himself. 

“It’s not that serious,” Takano whispers to Aoyagi, although the moment he leaves the stage he cannot hide the fact that he is limping anymore. 

The adrenaline wears off. Segawa’s magic supplement cocktail begins to wear off, too. It’s just him, standing in Rothbart’s royal blue costume, out of place. Between this world and somewhere else.

He tells them he’d dress up first, and refuses the wheelchair twice before Segawa would insist that he sits. 

“It is no time to be proud,” someone tells him from behind. He cannot see who. 

It is not that he’d be so proud, he just knows that he can manage to walk. But Takano only sighs. What is the point in arguing with people who refuse to understand? They should know by now that the moment he agrees, his spirit has already drifted a million worlds away. 

He needs his headspace anyway after the show is done, so he uses this opportunity to turn in on himself. 

The company car is waiting for him outside, parked conveniently near to the door. In the middle of the parking lot, he can see the Barbarians’ van that is stationed there to wait for Nayuta with cake and champagne. A distance away, his fans are already lining up, neatly organized and waiting for him to come out. When they see Takano in the wheelchair, there’s an uproar in the crowd. Murmurs about his injury sweep through the waiting fans. 

Another reason why he should have just walked, Takano thinks. When he looks up at Aoyagi, he is probably thinking the exact same thing. His expression is troubled.

“It would be for the best if Segawa drove you to the hospital from here,” Aoyagi suggests. 

Aoyagi has a lot of opinions, here on this day, he thinks. Then he realizes. Again. He may be saying this because he thinks Takano is nothing short of being furious with him. 

Oh, silly.

“No, I want you to take me, Aoyagi,” Takano tells him, emerging from the wheelchair. He takes Aoyagi’s lower arm as a crutch.

“But…”

“I said I want you to take me, Aoyagi.” He glances at Segawa for a moment. “She has saved the world three times already today, don’t make her drive now, too. She needs to explain everything at the hospital, once we made it there anyway.”

The ride is quiet. Aoyagi is too focused on the navigation application to say a word, Takano is comfortable with the silence, and Segawa isn’t one to chatter either. There is nothing left for him, apart from focusing on the throbbing pain in his ankle. It’s manageable. He felt much worse, before. The night road is coloured orange, red, and white ahead of them but there is an unusual stillness on the road, like time has frozen. 

-

Segawa takes up the task to explain everything at the closest emergency room, while he sits down next to Aoyagi as they wait for someone to take a look at him. As it is late at night, the clinic is not particularly busy — he would be seen quicker than expected.

Segawa hands over a sheet for him to fill out before a doctor would see him and he goes through the checkboxes rather carelessly, if not with a certain brand of annoyance. Wanting to give him space, she sits down at the bench on the other side of the clinic. Just far enough to give him privacy, and just near enough to be at service any moment she needed. 

“She really works for that image of hers,” Takano murmurs through pressed teeth, as he finishes checking the last box. 

He hands the paper over to Aoyagi. “Could you—?” 

“Of course.”

Aoyagi takes the documents from him and returns them to the receptionist, before sitting back down next to him again. The bright led lights on the ceiling paint the entire room bright as if it was still daytime. But behind the white curtains that are always drawn for a sense of privacy, he can see the deep blue of the night sky, flashing with red, orange, and green anywhere he looks. Colour is everywhere. Light is everywhere. There is a karaoke parlour just outside the building, the moon logo behind its name blinking yellow. 

Aoyagi is quiet next to him.

Thinking about how he planned to get a carton of beer and invite himself to his Chofu apartment to get comfortably tipsy for one last time before he’d leave Japan behind seems like a far-fetched idea now. When he looks up at Aoyagi, their eyes meet. He must have been looking at him for a while, for he averts his eyes immediately, caught in the act.

“I’m sorry,” Aoyagi says. “For making your judgment sound unreliable, in front of my company.” 

“Don’t apologize. You spoke out for me, all things considered.” One examination room’s door opens and a nurse calls his name. “And, besides, it is rare that you’d speak your mind at all. I always wanted to see that.” 

He uses Aoyagi’s hand to push himself into a standing position before Segawa would even be able to make her way to them. 

“You can go home, Segawa,” he tells her, before entering the room. “You were asked to do too much already today. I’ll have Aoyagi take me home.”

“Won’t you need me to be here for the results?” Segawa asks. 

Her voice is exhausted and hearing that Takano only shakes his head. 

“We’ll be fine. Go home for now. Goodnight.” 

She seems like she wants to say something else but she only lowers her head in the end and acknowledges the request with a nod.

“Goodnight,” she replies. 

Takano sees her tall figure off as she leaves through the main door with a faint smile, then finally steps into the examination room. 

-

After the initial examination and the x-ray following that, Takano is back in the waiting room with Aoyagi by his side. He could easily send him home and just call a taxi later, when he is done. 

But Aoyagi has nowhere to go.

Aoyagi has nowhere better to be, Takano tells himself. It is almost nothing more than an excuse. Every time he’s been with Aoyagi, he forced his own company on him, and not the other way around. Does Aoyagi realize that he has fans? 

He probably doesn’t. He has this tendency to go through life largely unaware of any positive advances one may make on him. There is a reason why he didn’t start an affair with Minami, Takano thinks, and it is because he didn’t realize Minami had a crush on him, to begin with. 

At times he’d like to do something, to wake Aoyagi up from this strange, stagnant slumber. But then again, he is not that sort of a person. He doesn’t mind running after someone per se, but—

He also wasn’t made for running, either. 

Aoyagi brings the back of his hand to his mouth as he tries to stifle a yawn. 

“Sorry,” he apologizes, when he notices that Takano is watching. “I woke up at four this morning.” 

“No need to worry — you’re not at work anymore.” 

Or is he? 

Watching Aoyagi struggle to keep another yawn in, a certain kind of exhaustion takes over him. His injury drained him a long time ago, of course, but now he has time to be uncomfortably aware of it, too. Segawa’s miracle Power Wing and supplement cocktail are also nothing more than a memory. And yet. And still. 

Takano laughs to himself.

“What is it?”

“You remember, when you were a child and it was late at night; later than you’d normally be up for? You were very exhausted, with your eyes closing already, but you refused to go to bed because you knew that if you did, you’d lose this moment forever.” Aoyagi nods as a response. “... it’s been a while I felt like that.” 

“Are you going to miss Rothbart?”

Takano tilts his head and gives him a long, puzzled look.

Is he really this stupid?

He must be playing, right? He cannot just remove himself from the equation to this degree. 

The examination room door opens and a nurse comes out before Takano could say something very genuine albeit insulting in response. 

There is no need to worry about his injury as it is not particularly serious, but he should rest it for the next week at least, and it will take at least a few days until the pain properly subdues. 

Aoyagi goes to the reception and pays for the examination charges out of his pocket. He asks for a receipt and tells Takano that Ariake F&P would later reimburse him for it.

Takano isn’t so sure, but he has stopped exerting himself for today. 

He uses Aoyagi’s hand as a crutch to stand up once he comes back, and they make their way out of the clinic. 

-

The car ride back to Sengawa is even more quiet than before. Takano folds his arms and stares out the window, allowing the solemn atmosphere to fully corner him. Sometimes, you have to give way to melancholy thoughts. 

He wonders which one it is? Does he have too much to say, knowing that no words will be able to relay? Or does he have nothing to say at all? Maybe at times one just enjoys the silence they can share with someone else. Why do we even have to talk, to be able to find harmony with someone else? 

“I will miss Rothbart,” Aoyagi says, answering his own question with almost half an hour of delay. “I mean, the show.”

“Will you find it hard to go back to your office life?” Takano asks, knowing what exact answer he is waiting for.

“I never really left the office life.” The car takes a sharp turn. “But I will find it hard to leave this particular office life, yes.” 

“That’s good to hear. It means you came to like ballet, after all.” 

Takano allows himself a thin smile. Sometimes it’s enough to know that the thing you love has been able to touch someone else’s heart. Things might look grandiose from the outside, but it doesn’t mean they have to be. The top of the world is not always a climb away. At times it is only reflecting in the eyes of someone who accidentally became important to you. 

That is enough, Takano tells himself. That’s all we can ask for. 

“I suppose that is true,” Aoyagi agrees. “Sometimes you don’t expect any of the beauty that is still waiting for you in life.” 

Aoyagi stares straight at the road. “Minami was phenomenal tonight.” 

He bites the smile into his lower lip.

“You should tell her. She will be glad to hear.” 

Something in him thinks that Aoyagi never will — although he agrees to do so now.

The car silently pulls up to the closest parking lot to Takano’s apartment. Aoyagi pays the parking fee before opening the door for him and helping him out of the car. Takano looks up at him and takes his hand, although he does not need it. 

He takes his keys out to surpass the auto lock system, then calls the elevator. The entrance hall is dark at this hour, so when the lift arrives, it fills the small area where the post boxes line up with artificial light. Ground floor, the robotic voice announces. The lift pulls them up to Takano’s apartment with an unusually sluggish speed. He can feel every individual second and in those moments, he can feel Aoyagi too. 

-

He finally unlocks his front door and Aoyagi begins to say his goodnights. Takano shakes his head and calls him by his name.

“Hm, no. Goodbye is forever, don’t rush now. You bought a parking ticket already, no? At least come in for a second.”

His apartment is not in a state for anyone’s eyes to see but he never particularly tried to pretend in front of Aoyagi. And besides, he’s seen the man’s house too. Nothing can look sadder than that.

“I—” 

“Don’t even think about making me beg you.”

Takano opens the front door wide, and invites him in with a hand motion. Aoyagi bows his head and enters without any further arguing. He takes some time with his shoes in the genkan, as kicking them off is not an option, while Aoyagi diligently waits for him. 

“You’re my first and last guest,” Takano tells him, showing him into the room as they walk through the narrow foyer. 

Aoyagi’s gaze runs through the renovated, grey panels on the wall.

“It is a pretty house,” he thinks.

“Yes. Imagine if it came furnished too,” Takano laughs as he flicks the lights off.

“I’m sorry,” Aoyagi apologizes immediately, as if everything in the world was his fault. 

“Well, I filled it up with this and that over the past half a year, but getting rid of that will be a challenge.”

“The company will do that for you,” Aoyagi offers immediately. “I’ll do it, I mean.”

Funny for someone to offer that after he clearly struggled with getting rid of his own appliances just a few months ago, Takano thinks. Maybe he should take it as a compliment. 

He doesn’t have a real table and chairs but he has a coffee table with some cushions around it to sit. His futon is spread out on the floor, undone from this morning. 

Takano takes his pillow from there to prop his leg up on as he sits down on the floor. He offers one of the cushions to Aoyagi. 

“Should I bring you some ice, or—?”

“No. Just stay where you are.” Takano closes his eyes, taking this feeling in. He sighs. “I’d offer you some beer but only if you aren’t about to drive home tonight.” 

“I should be driving home,” Aoyagi says. 

“Of course, you should be,” Takano agrees, flapping his hand as if he said something very silly. 

He watches Aoyagi like that for a moment. No words. Words are always so hard to produce, other people don’t realize. They don’t realize the thinking and planning that goes behind every sentence when something important comes up.

As if Aoyagi could read his mind, he looks up to ask.

“By the way… You wanted to talk to me about something once the show successfully ended.”

He wonders if the show can be considered a success. But even so, words are still hard. Plans sound silly when said out loud. They are too telling. The more you want them, the more embarrassing they become. He cannot just declare what he wants to the world like that, when he expects to be refused. 

When did he become such a coward? Maybe he always was. He wasn’t good at this whole being a real person thing, after all.

For a moment, he considers his answer. He considers a world where he’d get a favourable answer. Then, he shakes his head. It is silly. Aoyagi would certainly stay with his company.

“It’s nothing,” he finally says. “It’s not important.” 

Their eyes meet and there is a faint, but sad smile passing through Aoyagi’s face, mirroring his own.

“When you say that,” Aoyagi thinks, “you make it sound like it’s everything.” 


End file.
